The present invention relates to an on-demand type radio transmitting/receiving apparatus and method for a car user and, more particularly, to an on-demand type radio transmitting/receiving apparatus and method for a car user, which use commercial message (CM) broadcasting.
Car navigation systems used in cars are currently becoming popular. Some advanced car navigation systems have a communication function and receive information of restaurants or leisure spots into the car navigation systems through a portable telephone or automobile telephone. Shop information or the like is also recorded on CDs or DVDs, though such information is variable. A car navigation system having a communication function is advantageous because it can cope with the latest information by communication.
Examples of xe2x80x9cinformation services dedicated to information providing for car driversxe2x80x9d are MONET of TOYOTA MOTOR CORP., Compass Link of NISSAN MOTOR Co.Ltd., Internavi of HONDA MOTOR Co.Ltd., ITGS of MERCEDES BENZ, and Mobile Links in which various manufacturers of car navigation systems take part. These services assume bi-directional communication between the service side and the car side.
There is also a xe2x80x9cVICS information servicexe2x80x9d. The VICS can load information of traffic jam or regulation, or vacancy information of a parking area onto the navigation window. The VICS uses beacons of two types: light and radio wave transmitted from beacons along trunk roads, and FM radio waves in a wide area. This service is based on one-way communication from the service side to the car side.
In the field of the Internet, a technology called PUSH is widely used. For example, in the mechanism of Pointcast available from Pointcast (see www.pointcast.com), when a user pre-registers the type of necessary information, the user-side PC accesses the WWW server through the Internet at an appropriate timing (e.g., every hour or every day) to automatically acquire the latest information on the WWW server, and the acquired information is presented on the user PC. When viewed from the user side, pieces of information related to desired information designated by the user himself/herself is automatically sequentially provided.
Additionally, xe2x80x9cJapanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-336256xe2x80x9d discloses a technique for a traffic information selecting apparatus for a car, which can select a traffic information program on the basis of the latest broadcasting schedule of a receivable broadcasting station in units of areas.
The above-described xe2x80x9cinformation services dedicated to information providing for car driversxe2x80x9d have the following problems.
The user must pay the charge for the information service.
The user must pay the charge for the portable telephone.
These services can provide high-performance functions because of their ability of bi-directional communication but require the user side to do various input operations. This may impede the driving operation while the user is driving.
The current communication speed is as low as 9,600 bps because of intervention of a digital portable telephone.
The above xe2x80x9cVICS information servicexe2x80x9d has the following problems.
Since the VICS is not communication but broadcasting, information providing corresponding to the specific situations of individual users is not available.
The VICS using an FM radio wave provides only wide-area information while beacons provide more detailed information. To acquire detailed information, the user must purchase a beacon receiver. However, beacon transmitters are installed only along trunk roads.
The user actually pays the charges for use of the information service by purchasing a special beacon receiver.
Because the VICS is a public information service, it provides no shop information.
As the first problem of the technique disclosed in xe2x80x9cJapanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-336256xe2x80x9d, two systems, a pager and broadcasting, are necessary. As the second problem, since broadcasting is not repeated, the user misses information at a high probability (for example, when the car enters a tunnel or the like, information cannot be acquired because no radio wave can be received). As the third problem, only traffic information is available.
To implement an ideal service providing form for a driver, the following two conditions must be satisfied.
First Condition: Adaptive Information for User
Only information corresponding to the situation or taste of the user must be provided. Since most users are driving, the use interface is preferably simple. Possibly, automatic information providing without requiring any operation is convenient. This is a one-way interface such as radio broadcasting. For example, in accordance with the current position, time, and situation of a driver, only necessary information such as xe2x80x9cA McDonald""s is nearbyxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cThere will be fireworks display in this city in one hourxe2x80x9d, or xe2x80x9cHoryuji Temple Exhibition will be held from today (or from tomorrow) at the Y Museum in the X city nearbyxe2x80x9d is automatically selected and broadcast. This prevents the driver from operating by himself/herself.
Today, no information providing service adaptive to a person is present in relation to a car navigation system. Even if such a service is provided, it requires a bi-directional communication function, and particularly, the cost for the user increases.
Second Condition: Elimination (or Minimization) of Burden of Cost on User and Reasonable Cost for Provider
The user does not want to pay the charge for use. On assumption of this fact, a device such as a portable telephone cannot be used (unless the information providing service side pays the charge for communication). This requires a mechanism advantageous for both the driver side and the information provider side. Currently, TV watching on commercial broadcasting is free for viewers because the broadcasting charge is paid by the CM sponsor. This is because the sponsor recognizes the effect obtained by paying the broadcasting charge. When viewed from a viewer, the commercial broadcasting station broadcasts not only CM films but a program such as a drama attractive for the viewer, and CM films accompanying the program.
Thus, the viewer naturally watches the CM films. If only CM films are available, a busy viewer does not watch the commercial program. Similarly, a mechanism is required with which the CM sponsor can and wants to pay the cost, and the viewer wants to continuously listen to the program (even including the charge). These ideal requirement items for the user side cannot be implemented in any current service.
To satisfy the first condition, the user must register the type of information necessary for himself/herself, and the provider side must provide, to the user, only information required by the user. If only information required by the user is provided, the user need not say xe2x80x9cI want itxe2x80x9d on demand. For this reason, the user interface is simplified.
The above-described Pointcast is a technology for satisfying the first condition. Although the Pointcast apparently equals TV broadcasting, it presents only information of type designated by the user, while TV broadcasting targets many unspecified viewers. In other words, the Pointcast is broadcasting customized to a person. However, the operation mechanism uses communication. In addition, the user-side PC accesses the WW server. Hence, when this service is used in a car using a portable telephone, the user must pay the charges for use of the portable telephone. That is, the Pointcast is different from broadcasting in implementation.
As long as the current communication infrastructure is used, the second condition cannot be satisfied for both the user side and the information provider side. Even in the U.S.A. market where the cost is lower than in Japan, the typical service for portable telephones is xe2x80x9c30 dollars per month guarantees use for 100 hrs at maximumxe2x80x9d. In Japan, the cost is higher. Even with this charge, information desired by the user is limited. Even for the information provider, the advantage of providing information to individual drivers by paying the charge cannot be easily found.
Hence, these conditions can be satisfied when the cost is reduced using not the communication infrastructure but the broadcasting infrastructure, and a service which can be implemented using only the communication infrastructure is provided.
It is an object of the present invention to implement broadcasting customized to a person by implementing a PUSH-type information providing mechanism which can be implemented by only a communication infrastructure for a car driver for which the time, position, and the types of necessary contents change as the time elapses (i.e., by repeatedly broadcasting a set of commercial message (CM) programs such that the receiving side can be prevented from executing complex and expensive processing of storing the CM programs in advance and extracting and reproducing them as needed), using a broadcasting infrastructure (without using a pager), simultaneously broadcasting information from the provider to many unspecified persons, and selecting the information on the receiving side in accordance with the TPO (time, place, and occasion).
In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided an on-demand type radio transmitting/receiving apparatus for selecting, from digital satellite radio broadcasting or digital ground radio broadcasting simultaneously broadcast to many unspecified persons, only information which matches a current position and current time of a car driven by a user and matches desired information registered in advance by the user, and presenting the information to the user, comprising a commercial program which stores commercial broadcasting information to which classification information of a content, and time information and position information, which represent effective time and position of the content, respectively, are attached, a commercial broadcasting device which serves as a digital radio broadcasting device on a broadcasting station side, including the digital satellite radio broadcasting or digital ground radio broadcasting, and always continuously periodically broadcasts a plurality of commercial programs as a unit, a taste storage device for storing a type of information desired by the user, a time storage device for holding the latest current time, a position storage device for holding the latest position information, an address and longitude/latitude correspondence device which incorporates a correspondence table of a normal address and longitude/latitude information and, upon receiving an address as an input, outputs corresponding longitude/latitude information, a commercial program selector which receives the commercial program, transfers a value representing an address as position information in the commercial program to the address and longitude/latitude correspondence device, receives longitude/latitude information converted from the address, compares the classification information, time information, and longitude/latitude information in the commercial program with values in the taste storage device, time storage device, and position storage device, and selects and outputs only a matching commercial program, and a reproducer for reproducing the content of the commercial program output from the commercial program selector.